EBAPS is a forced-choice instrument designed to probe students' epistemologies,
their views about the nature of
knowledge and learning in the physical sciences. It was initially
developed and validated by Andrew Elby, John Frederiksen,
Christina Schwarz, and Barbara White at the University of
California, Berkeley.

EBAPS is aimed at high school and college
students taking introductory physics, chemistry or physical
science. It's optimized for algebra-based courses. A versions of
EBAPS suitable for purely conceptual courses (often aimed at
liberal arts majors) is under development.

The Maryland Physics Expectations Survey (MPEX),
developed by the Physics Education Research Group at the
University of Maryland, and the Views about Science Survey (VASS),
developed by Halloun and Hestenes at Arizona State University,
probe a combination of students' epistemological beliefs and
their course-specific expectations and study habits. In
addition, those surveys work best if students' intuitive
epistemologies take the form of consistent and articulate
beliefs. Although epistemology and expectations cannot be
completely disentangled, EBAPS attempts to focus on epistemology
to the extent possible, and also attempts to probe tacit,
contextualized epistemological knowledge that may affect
students' learning behavior. For more details, including the
justification for, development of and validation of EBAPS, please
see the Idea Behind EBAPS, a mini-paper.
Section 3 of that paper discusses validity
and reliability.

1. Structure of scientific knowledge. Is physics and
chemistry knowledge a bunch of weakly connected pieces without
much structure and consisting mainly of facts and formulas? Or is
it a coherent, conceptual, highly-structured, unified whole?

2. Nature of knowing and learning. Does learning
science consist mainly of absorbing information? Or, does it rely
crucially on constructing one's own understanding by working
through the material actively, by relating new material to prior
experiences, intuitions, and knowledge, and by reflecting upon
and monitoring one's understanding?

3. Real-life applicability. Are scientific knowledge
and scientific ways of thinking applicable only in restricted
spheres, such as a classroom or laboratory? Or, does science
apply more generally to real life? These items tease out students'
views of the applicability of scientific
knowledge as distinct from the student's own desire to
apply science to real life, which depends on the student's
interests, goals, and other non-epistemological factors.

4. Evolving knowledge. This dimension probes the extent
to which students navigate between the twin perils of absolutism
(thinking all scientific knowledge is set in stone) and extreme
relativism (making no distinctions between evidence-based
reasoning and mere opinion).

5. Source of ability to learn. Is being good at science
mostly a matter of fixed natural ability? Or, can most people
become better at learning (and doing) science? As much as
possible, these items probe students' epistemological views about
the efficacy of hard work and good study strategies, as
distinct from their self-confidence and other beliefs about
themselves.

Most students need 15 to 22 minutes to complete
EBAPS. Scantron forms are recommended.

Each item is scored on a scale of 0 (least
sophisticated) to 4 (most sophisticated). The scoring scheme is non-linear to take into account question-by-question
variations in whether, for instance, neutrality is more or less
sophisticated. A subscale score is simply the average of the
student's scores on every item in that subscale. (When an item within a
given subscale is left blank, the average is calculated without that
item included.) Sometimes we
multiply through by 25 in order to report subscale scores on a
scale of 0 to 100.

To automate the scoring using Microsoft Excel,
see the instructions and download the Excel scoring template.